


Coronation

by MagalaBee



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Backstory, Canon Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 21:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20320066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagalaBee/pseuds/MagalaBee
Summary: Not all thrones are inherited with pomp and circumstance. Not all blood rights are noble or divine.





	Coronation

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pre-game fic that was featured in the Radiance fanzine project! Thanks so much for reading.

_Springtime comes to Kilvas with uncharacteristic greenery in blooming flowers and cliff sides covered in soft grass. This is the first sign that he is dreaming, and Naesala wishes that he had not realized that, for it was so much harder to enjoy the luxury when he knew it wasn’t real._

* * *

_It was a dream he’d had before and was quite used to now. It left a bittersweet taste in his mouth as he climbed a lush hill. He saw alabaster feathers in the air and opened his mouth to call out, but instead, his voice erupted in a scream--_

Pain tore through his blood like fire, and Naesala shrieked as he clutched his left wrist. Throwing himself up from his bed of messy silk, he felt blood welling up from his skin and falling in heavy droplets onto the floor. The light of dawn was weak but gave him just enough to see the crimson splatter beside his feet.

He clenched his jaw at the pain and he wondered if this was the mysterious fever which had been ravaging Kilvas for months. Of the many thousands who had died, it was said that the infection grew so extreme, the patients thought they were burning as they tried to pull their own feathers out. As the pain in his arm radiated throughout the rest of his body, Naesala wondered if it was his turn to die from it.

Hand shaking now, he lifted it up and looked to see intricate lines searing into his flesh. They looped and swirled in some kind of arcane sigil. They were carved into his skin, cauterizing themselves like a brand as they bore into his flesh.

“What...” Naesala vainly gasped, trying to make sense of it. He looked around his meager chambers for any sign of an intruder or magic, but he had never understood the ethereal very well. He couldn’t see anything amiss.

He stumbled to his wardrobe. Without many other options, the princeling pulled a linen scarf out and began trying to wrap it around his arm as tears pricked against his eyes. It made him feel like his whole limb was submerged in hot coals. His wings shuddered and tensed against his back as he winced.

Naesala was able to pull a structured robe over himself before he made for the door, keeping his arm bent close against his middle as he did. He opened it for find Nealuchi already there, a withered hand raised to knock.

“Nestling...”

“Wh...” Naesala gasped for breath, pushing back the pain as he noticed the look of mournful distress in his old caretaker’s eyes. While the clothing of Kilvas was usually in dark hues, the discerning eye could tell the look of mourning garb. Nealuchi was a man who had always liked to add a splash of blue or purple to his livery, but since the plague had taken Naesala’s aunt and youngest cousins, Nealuchi had dressed in dull greys.

Today, he was clothed entirely in pitch black.

“Who?” Naesala asked quietly. The burning in his arm didn’t seem to matter anymore. It was replaced by the sinking dread in his gut.

“Her Highness,” Nealuchi answered, reaching out a hand to take Naesala’s as it began to shake again. “The crown princess died in her sleep, Nestling.”

“Gods--”

“And,” Nealuchi’s silvery, old eyes found Naesala’s and held them. “His Majesty. Your uncle is dead.”

It was more surprising to hear that his cousin, the last one he’d had, was dead than it was to hear about the king. Naesala’s uncle had been a kind enough man to his nephew, but his cousins were the ones he cherished. Devas dying last month had been a blow to the whole family, and since then it seemed like they were dropping like flies. Despite all of this, Seri should have been immune. She was headstrong and stubborn and had been preparing to inherit the Kilvasi throne all of her life, through both personal merit and birthright.

If she was dead…

Naesala jerked his hand back from Nealuchi. The pain in his arm was completely forgotten as he bolted down the hallway of carved marble and limestone. “No, no, no--” he muttered under his breath. “Seri can’t be gone.”

“Naesala!” Nealuchi shouted, but his cane made it hard for him to keep up with the young raven. In his panic, Naesala’s wings stretched out and lifted his heels off the ground, propelling him forward. He passed other servants in the palace as he hurried to the Royal Chambers, and all of them were in the darkest black clothing too, to respect the death of the king and his heir. 

Without even knocking, Naesala threw open the doors to Seri’s room and found a set of priests already with her. Her body had been covered in a silken shroud and they had incense lit while prayers to the Sleeping Goddess were recited. They glanced at Naesala when he interrupted, but neither knew what to say as he backed out of the room. He couldn’t stomach the shape of her body beneath the sheet, her wings folded carefully beneath her, but loose feathers still shed on the floor beside her death bed.

“Seri... Gods, no, don’t leave me here--” he whispered to himself, his eyes flickering to the large set of double doors across the hall. His uncle was dead too?

Carefully, Naesala stepped towards them, and one of the priests from Seri’s room shouted after him

“Y-Your Highness, please don’t go in there! It isn’t--”

Naesala could barely hear them, though, and he pushed one door open, to be greeted by a body still sitting upright in his chair. The king sat before a small table, with a glass of wine half consumed and a small letter on it, scrawled hastily and stained with the blood that had poured out of his cut wrists all over the floor.

For a long moment, Naesala could only stare at the tableau before him.

His uncle had not died from the plague. He had abandoned them all, writing only: ‘I am sorry’ on a piece of parchment. On the king’s left wrist, though, was a faded mark that matched the one which had freshly inscribed its way into Naesala’s skin.

There was a ringing in Naesala’s ears, and though he was vaguely aware of some footsteps and shuffling behind him, he did not react to it. His eyes were held captive by that mark and the omen it brought until Nealuchi’s hand grabbed his shoulder and tore him away.

“Don’t look, Nestling,” the elder said sharply. “Don’t.”

The doors to the king’s chambers were closed once again, and Naesala was ushered to a quiet alcove in the hallway. Away from the stench of death.

His father had been the king’s younger brother, and a notorious lay about. No one had ever expected much of him or his ill-begotten son. Naesala’s handful of cousins were all in line for the throne before him, and that had always been fine in the young raven’s book. He didn’t want that much responsibility, not when Begnion’s power lurked just a short boat-ride away. 

Not after what they’d done to Serenes.

Swallowing on bile, Naesala began to nervously coddle his wrapped arm. That mark was haunting him.

“...Nealuchi, what am I going to do?” he asked, sounding like a child again.

“I don’t know,” Nealuchi answered. “But... _Your Majesty_, it will be alright. Kilvas has always persevered.”

Naesala hated how that title sounded. Majesty. There was nothing majestic about being the last one left. He flinched at it and gulped down air. “Is it as bad as the wars yet?”

One of the best things about Nealuchi was his impeccable memory. As a laguz who had lived far past the life expectancy of his kind, he had seen much more than anyone else. Nealuchi had been born in the Era of Slavery. Before any of the bird tribes had their freedom. He had lived through the Emancipation War, and then again lived through Kilvas’s own Revolution when it separated from Phoenicis, along with a handful of other wars and disasters across the ages. He had witnessed centuries of death and life.

“...A plague is not the same thing as a war, Nestling,” he cautioned.

“But the death toll,” Naesala insisted. “Tell me, please. Is it... as bad as the wars?”

Nealuchi was obviously reluctant to answer, but he had never lied to Naesala when it mattered before. He wouldn’t do it now. Not when he was going to be a king.

“Half the population is dead or taken ill, Your Majesty.”

Naesala felt his head spinning, and the pain in his arm began to throb. He clutched the limb closer to his chest and Nealuchi’s brows pursed in concern.

“Are you hurt?”

“No,” Naesala lied quickly. “I’m fine. It is just… shock.”

While it was not the truth, it was not entirely untrue either, and Nealuchi’s first instinct was to comfort the boy he had raised. “Come… let the priests perform the last rights. You need some rest.”

The sun was peeking out from between the arid cliffs now, shining disparate rays of orange light into the palace. It illuminated the decorative stone carvings that lined each hallway and pillar. The etchings told stories of old legends and history, from two Goddesses fostering life to the flight of a tricky raven outrunning a hawk. Bathed in the morning light, one carving looked like a single corvid flying headlong into a raging fire, and Naesala felt his heart stop for a moment as he caught sight of it.

He did not sleep when Nealuchi ushered him back to his own bed, but he laid down and he stared at the ceiling, counting how many dead names he knew in his head. He began with herons who had fallen some fifteen years ago and ended with Seri and his uncle.

“Coward…” he whispered spitefully. “You couldn’t take the grief, so you left me alone with it?” Again, his arm began to ache and Naesala hugged it to his chest. He’d never had a mind for magic. Whatever the mark was, it couldn’t be good. Cautiously, he unwrapped the scarf from his arm. The delicate fabric was ruined now, stained and caked with his blood. But the sigil had stopped bleeding. It only wept mildly from the burns. The surrounding skin was blistered and red. It looked like a cruel mark of ownership.

“What did you do?” he muttered to the ghost of a man who would never speak again. “What… have you done to Kilvas?”


End file.
